abject apathy
by vaelet
Summary: The Yeti Elder reflects on her new baby. (Theory based one-shot; canon compliant.)


**So my friend had this theory and I couldn't help but write this. This would've been posted in the same fic as "golden new years" but alas, the angst here contrasts with the tone of that fic so here this is.**

* * *

She was supposed to love him.

The Yeti Elder looked down at the bundle of fur in her lap. A baby looked back up at her — the reddest, roundest, plumpest baby she'd ever seen, with huge amber eyes and auburn fur. Her baby — a baby who she spent hours in labor over just to bring into the world, and now he was here and babbling on, cooing and extending his tiny hands out as if he expected something. Most babies cried a lot, yet this one was rather calm, not that she was complaining though. The sound of a child wailing would drive her insane, making her go deaf in the process of said insanity. Better for him to coo and gurgle than to scream loudly.

She studied him for a moment. She certainly didn't hate the little thing enough to want to leave him with a hungry predator, but she didn't quite love him either. She didn't want to carry him around or nurse him all the time, or spend her time licking him clean of ticks and wrapping around him to keep him warm during winter. She was supposed to love him, but she didn't — if anything, she was bitter towards him.

_Him_.

The Yeti Elder sighed. There was no use denying the disappointment she felt, seeing her newborn son. After months of searching for a place to migrate to, finding someone to mate with to continue the line, going through that whole ritual and carrying the baby, and what did she end up with? A baby boy who didn't look anything like her nor any of the other yetis. She had been expecting a girl — a fine yeti girl with white and blue fur. Instead, she got a little boy with fur as red as autumn leaves; a mockery of her and her tribe.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to _her_. All of that work, all of that labor, and for what? She had been trying so hard to make it all work — the migration, mating, the baby. Right from the start, she had tried to make everything fall right into place. She had it planned like this — she would try to find a place for her tribe to migrate to, so they could create their own utopia where man couldn't find them. The mating thing was not planned, not at first — it was only until she realized that she could not be the tribe's leader forever that she decided to search for a mate, and she did. She found a dark red sasquatch. He wasn't an ideal choice, really — too much of a redneck, not to mention his subspecies teetered uncomfortably close to being linked with mankind, but she didn't have many options. She couldn't find a mate within her tribe members, and there weren't many of her kind out there. Their kind was going extinct, dying off one by one, slowly but surely. In the end, it was either she mate with this redneck, or her tribe would be without a future leader, so she made her choice.

She let him make his advances on her, let him have his way with her and all that. She didn't pay mind to how it felt, pleasurable or not — she just wanted it over and done with. Once the deed was done, the father of her child left and honestly, she hadn't been surprised at all when she woke up the next morning after that night, finding that he was long gone. What should she have expected from that git, really? So, she carried on, making preparations for the migration while also carrying his seed within her.

The migration — she had been so focused on the preparations for when they'd leave for Shangri-La, making sure everyone was all set and ready, that she hadn't really even tried forming a bond with her child during the pregnancy. She was so busy and had assumed that when the child was born, there'd be a bond between them immediately. She didn't think that she _had _to speak to the bump in her stomach, the little seed of life growing inside her. She assumed it would be a perfect little yeti girl, a fine tribal heiress, and that she'd adore her when she came out.

Then she'd given birth.

Nine months later, the day of birth came and _bloody hell, _was it painful. She'd been roaring and growling at the healer, her guards and just about anyone who came near as she gave birth. It took hours upon hours to push the baby out, and when she finally managed to push it out —

It was a boy. She had given birth to a boy with red fur, just as red as his bastard of a father's fur — a boy who, like his father, was a part of a subspecies that teetered uncomfortably close to being linked with mankind. Actually, as she eyed her child more now, she saw that he wasn't just teetering close to mankind — oh no, no; it seemed that this child, this _thing, _was the missing link between sasquatch and man.

Man, the species who hunted her kind. Man, the source of all evil in the world. Man, who claimed to want to preserve endangered creatures yet hunted them like a fox did with rabbits, until there wasn't a single one of them left.

_Man, _the one who brought destruction of all dreams, hope and peace within the world.

And her son was the link between her kind and _them_.

The more she looked down at him, the more disgusted she felt. How could this happen? All this time, she'd been expecting a yeti daughter — she'd _wanted _a yeti daughter! And now, she had a boy who was the missing link between humans and sasquatch. She felt so lost, so disgusted, so — so _angry_. What was she supposed to _do _with this boy? How was she going to raise this boy? He couldn't ascend as a leader of the tribe once her time as the elder ended, that was certain. He couldn't fit in with the rest of the tribe either with his red fur, with his human-like features, with his — his _everything_. All of his features, all of his traits — none of them would fit in with the tribe. The Yeti Elder frowned down at the baby boy. What _was _she going to do with him?

None of the tribe members would be happy once they saw him. Not her guards, not the healer — none of them. She couldn't just show him off and expect them to welcome him with open arms, accept him as their future leader and look after him when she couldn't. If she couldn't accept her son, how could the rest of them? He would bring them all down, dragging them along the ground with him, and that would not do at all.

It all boiled down to the fact that the more she looked at her son, the more she examined him and reflected on the situation and his circumstance, the more hatred boiled within her. He was too much of a bother to deal with, and there was simply no place for him within their tribe nor Shangri-La.

And by the time the baby had tuckered himself out and dozed off, she had made her decision: tomorrow, she and her tribe would leave for Shangri-La. They would leave this forest behind, along with the boy. They would not speak of him, never mention him at all. He would be a secret, a memory of the past best forgotten — the son she would never remember.

–

When the time finally came, she made sure he was asleep and left him in a bed of leaves in the cave. The only thing left with him was a carving of yetis migrating, a parallel to his mother and tribe's departure as they left it all behind, left him behind.

–

Later on, a young sasquatch with auburn fur grows up in the forest, alone and wondering if he ever had a family. He grows up with this want to see his family, and so one day he enlists the help of a cryptozoologist from Britain to help him. Along the way comes the man's spitfire of an old flame, assisting them by providing a map.

When they do reach Shangri-La though, the Yeti Elder does not welcome the sasquatch in with open arms. She does not greet him kindly, does not ask him for his name, does not even touch her nose to his. Instead, she looks at him with this disgust, with a hatred one could only give to a child they saw after years of trying to forget, after years of leaving him behind.

But of course, he doesn't know. He doesn't know it's his mother, doesn't know that the elder is the one who brought him into the world — no, he thinks she's a distant relative; a cousin or maybe even a distant aunt. He doesn't know it's his mother because he barely remembers her face, her scent, her eyes — all she left him was a cave with a carving on the wall and a bunch of leaves growing through the cracks. He doesn't remember his mother.

Yet she remembers him. She remembers him and her voice is immediately filled with venom, with hatred, as she realizes she was right. He was not one of them, not one with the tribe — he's a part of _their _kind. Man, killer of life, of hope, of dreams. Man who talked of the magic of the world, but it was a prize, something to be claimed as proof of his worth.

And so, there's no hesitation when she says, "Throw them into the Inescapable Pit of Isolation and Miserable Disappointment."

Because that's what he is to her — a miserable disappointment; the son she never wanted, but got anyway.

–

After the boy's done spouting nonsensical insults at her, he leaves with the humans, or rather, they drag him away since he's kind of not really finished yelling.

And when she watches him leave, there isn't a twinge of remorse. She feels no care in the world minus maybe a little bit of anger from the insults, but there's no room for moping about him leaving. He's out of her hair at last, and she can continue on with her life ignoring the fact he ever existed. He can have his little human family for all she cares, as long as he stays away from Shangri-La.

So she watches as his figure disappears through the narrow hole of the entrance, feeling nothing but abject apathy.

* * *

**Yeah, yeah, a downer fic, I know… but hey, the ending isn't that sad when you realize that at least Susan finds a place with his human friends, right? Right?**  
**...anyway, I hope y'all enjoyed.**


End file.
